3. REGULACIÓN LEGAL EN COLOMBIA
3.4 FIRMA DIGITAL COMO MEDIO DE PRUEBA
street. Whilst this is not a full-out war (Lees 2006), it is a form of social negotiation and contestation of the meaning of public space in the context of the suburb.
The social codes are more clearly defined in the park and therefore cause far less tension, although this comes at the expense of excluding some groups and activities (the youth and their soccer). In the street, the ambiguity of meaning between an exten-sion of the domestic realm and a utilitarian public path have resulted in this non-verbal tussle. Fyfe argues that this occurs precisely when attempts have been made to purify a street “of disorder and differ-ence” (2006: 7). This can disable the possibilities of conflict resolution without resorting to extreme reactions which may be violent (Fyfe 2006). This could apply to both the park and the street to varying degrees. In the park, conflicts between users are not evident and there are elements of the purified environment. However, there are marked differences in the types of interventions in each space. The initia-tives in the park have been to encourage inclusive use by residents, whereas interventions in 1st Street have been to reduce the quality of that space and in some cases these interventions have been openly hostile, for example spiked fencing and security cameras.
Conclusion
The park is a clearly defined space that can be more easily improved and controlled. There are also rules specified at the entrance by Johannesburg City Parks and Zoo. This has enabled residents to invest and intervene in the space because activities and social interactions are limited to between sunrise and sunset and norms of behaviour have been established through the park regulations. As a pocket park, the users of the park are clearly intended to be residents of the area, which also adds to the simplicity of the space. The park is an amenity for all residents and the initiatives of residents have reinforced the service that this space provides.
The street cannot be so easily defined. It is porous and has no defined points of enclosure, although the streets in many Johannesburg neigh-bourhoods have been fenced and boomed. The street is ambiguous in its meaning and intended purpose.
The amenity that the taxi stop provides is not for residents directly but enables workers in the mall to
commute to their place of work. The primary purpose of the taxi stop is to serve people outside of the neigh-bourhood, and thus the anxiety that residents feel is also indicative of fear of the other.
This chapter has shown that the physical form of both 1st Street and Killarney Park are not obstacles to the way that these spaces are used by people in the neighbourhood. The environments are flexible enough to accommodate a variety of uses and users.
However, there is a significant difference in the mean-ing of these spaces. The park is viewed as legitimate public space and interventions in this space have rec-ognised the need for the space to function openly for many people and many activities while also making it a safe space. On the other hand, the meaning of the street is ambiguous. For some residents it is an extension of the private domestic realm while other residents and users exploit the street for its utility in recreation, socialising and illicit trading. The conflict on the streets arises from the need to frame the street as a public space.
Although this chapter has shown that streets function as public spaces despite their design, intro-ducing specific elements of furniture and material into the street space can foster different uses of the street as well as change perceptions of what a street should be. Benches that allow for relaxing and socialising, furniture that enables street trade, and road elements that signal to drivers that the street is a space of people and potentially play makes the road a safer place for both vehicles and pedestrians. This would also reinforce the street as a public space for a variety of activities and users.
Streets are considered by the Johannesburg City Council by-laws to be public open space and are protected as such. But as a road with requirements of traffic management there are also strict restrictions.
This means that many of the activities taking place on 1st Street are illegal, such as the taxi stop, the informal trading, using the street for games or recre-ation, and even the ambiguous loitering which encap-sulates any form of socialising or relaxing on the street. On the one hand by-laws should be enforced with the aim of protecting the public space for all to use but, on the other, the full enforcement of these by-laws would leave the street a dull utilitarian space and quite possibly a less safe space. More nuanced by-laws, perhaps aligned with the different classes
of road, may enable more public space functions to occupy the street.
At the same time, social codes need to be developed so that private property owners recognise the value of the street as a public space and amenity rather than as an extension of the private residential domain. In essence, the work of organisations like Open Streets Cape Town is about rewriting the social codes of street spaces to create more inclusive public
streets. These social codes would need to enshrine the street as a public space which everyone has the right to use and enjoy. The social codes would recog-nise other activities on the street beyond the utilities of walking and driving. The adoption of expanded social codes would reduce the appropriation of public space through security measures and enable people to use streets in a variety of ways. The first step is to view the street – like the park – as a public amenity.
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Introduction
Streets in Gauteng are dominated by people using automobiles. This means that other users and types of uses are, in the main, subservient to those of driv-ing. This is in spite of the low levels of car ownership.
The 2014 National Household Travel Survey revealed that only 38.5% of households in Gauteng either owned or had access to a private car (Statistics South Africa 2015). In the democratic transition, there was heightened policy attention on the needs of people walking, cycling, using public transportation, as well as other forms of locomotion (Morgan 2017). One approach, called Complete Streets, seeks to trans-form streets in Gauteng into spaces with multiple uses and where different users can co-exist (see for example City of Johannesburg 2014). What might such a transformational process entail?
How would users respond to invitations for new ways of inhabiting and moving about streets?
How would the nature of street design shape user responses? This chapter considers these and other questions by examining a historical moment in the 1930s when policy-makers in towns and cities along the Witwatersrand mining belt were grappling with road use. With growing motorisation, questions arose as to how to accommodate all road users – not only those in private motor cars. At about the same time, two municipalities, Johannesburg and Springs, decided to separate road users by offering them their own spaces. However, while Johannesburg, as far as records reveal, created cycle lanes on one road – namely, Louis Botha Avenue – Springs created a
net-work of cycle tracks. Johannesburg’s cycle lanes were separated from motor vehicle space by white paint while most of the tracks in Springs were physically separated by space and barriers.
How do we understand these different degrees of accommodation for utility cycling in the two municipalities? This chapter uses concepts from the literature on transitions to organise the analysis into the reasons for the different council decisions for Johannesburg and Springs in the 1930s. The chapter argues that in Johannesburg, because of socio-economic inequality and actor activities, bicycles and then-automobiles were seen as symbols of social status (in as much as they were practical transportation tools). This was compounded by rapid urban expansion within a hillier topography.
In Springs, while there was inequality which might have produced the tendency towards conspicuous consumption, this was moderated early on by the influence of Protestant religious beliefs. In turn, these religious beliefs were supported by low levels of economic activity and compact morphology and level terrain. These dynamics shaped council decisions in allocations of bicycle infrastructure and use patterns. I conclude the chapter by drawing out lessons for the contemporary agenda to promote utility cycling. Data-collection methods were mixed, involving archival research, examination of second-ary materials including photography and film footage, and ethnography.
Background
As in the contemporary period (for example Mamabolo 2015; Pressly 2006), in the 1930s there were growing concerns about road congestion and safety along the Witwatersrand reef. In Johannesburg, a newspaper article entitled “Motor menace to city” claimed that given the injury rates,
“Johannesburg’s streets are more dangerous than
the Metropolitan area of London” (Unknown 1930).
The number of road fatalities and injuries was apparently putting pressure on hospitals (The Star 1999). Mayors and deputy mayors also complained about driving practices (City of Johannesburg 1939;
Unknown 1939a).
Road safety in Springs, about 5km due east of Johannesburg (see Figure 1), was also a matter of public and municipal concern (Unknown 1936).
One intersection that typified these anxieties was
a railway crossing in the town which was a regular site of accidents involving trains, cars, pedestrians, and cyclists. At that junction, the railway line ran at the same level as the roads. After one accident when three people died, there was apparently such public consternation that a crowd, assembled in the aftermath, had “the temper […] to burn down the old barn of the station and to dig up the rails, but saner counsels prevailed” (Editors 1938a).